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Forum:ME2: Geth Rewrite or Destruction
Something I never understood about ME2 is the fact that in Legion's loyalty 'A house divided' the Paragon choice is to rewrite the Geth, which basically amounts to indoctrination or brainwashing as you're forcing them to believe something else, while simply killing them is seen as Renegade. Personally I always thought it should've been the other way round as it makes more sense for the Paragon action to be removing them as a threat, rather than making the ethically questionable choice of changing their thoughts by force and having the risk of them going back to worshiping the Reapers. What are your thoughts on the choice? User:Apache287 When I played first I thought it's a brainwashing in the right direction, using Reaper Indoctrination against them, making others think that Reapers aren't to worship, but enemies. I thought I'll have allies against the reapers in ME3. I was directed by thoughts of potential allies rather than by morality. It's a grey area - elimination of threat or turning them against their new masters. SPOILER However rewritting in ME3 was revelated to be useless, because all geth returned to reapers, additionally the rewritten geth heavily weakened quarian fleet. If destroying the geth units in ME2 helps in making peace between quarian and geth in ME3, then destroying is a better option. This teaches that lesser evil isn't always obvious. FirstDrellSpectre (talk) 06:19, August 18, 2014 (UTC) In general, Paragon choices favor, for lack of a better word, 'harmony' over violence or rash action. It's why the paragon choice at the end of ME is saving the council ship. It preserves the current united face of the other races at the short-term cost of many human lives. Neither choice is ethically good (as there are losses either way). It's a choice about what is valued more: Longer-term cooperation and goodwill with others, or tactically sound, (if often callous) decisions that will still achieve the goal. Rewriting the heretic geth preserves their 'lives' and neutralizes the threat at the same time. A win-win for the paragon. The extra hook comes in the phrasing that's used for the choice. It makes Shepard's decision sound like he's forcing the rewrite, rather than giving the heretic geth agency in their future, which is enough to give most people pause. But (if you accept my definition for what's paragon), it's unambiguously paragon. Whether it's ethically good is another question. It's one of the few places where the two terms aren't synonymous, and I think it makes the choice all the more interesting. The game often does do things where Paragon choice => nice guy and Renegade choice => mean guy, which is unfortunate. But I think the 'A House Divided' quest is one they did well. There's good (and bad) in both decisions, while still retaining the core of what makes each ideology different. Just my $.02. -- Dammej (talk) 02:50, August 19, 2014 (UTC) While I get the idea of the fact it was a no win choice (and I liked that) my problem extends beyond just plain ethics in the fact that the series had until that point gone 'Indoctrination is bad, controlling others is evil' and yet then goes '+30 Paragon' for what amounts to Indoctrination to the Heretic Geth. --Apache287 (talk) 03:17, August 19, 2014 (UTC) To challenge you a bit, what if we flipped it the other way? Does it seem more Paragon (by whatever definition you choose) to do what amounts to a genocide of an entire people that happen to be your enemy, given that you have another option which removes them as a threat and allows them to continue to live as well? -- Dammej (talk) 03:31, August 19, 2014 (UTC) Except it isn't genocide, if anything it would be the elimination of a extremist sect who had slaughtered thousands of innocents and were attempting to forcibly convert the rest of their kind to their cause in the name of blind faith to the Reapers. These sorts of groups can be justifiably wiped out due to their past actions. The Geth in ME3 on the other hand don't deserve to be wiped out due to the fact their actions to accept Reaper help was due to the fact they'd been almost wiped out by the Quarian's in their fight to take back Rannoch. At the end of the day rewriting them makes you just as bad as the Reapers as you are forcing them to take up a certain cause without their consent. --Apache287 (talk) 03:40, August 19, 2014 (UTC) I won't make an argument that either choice is good or bad. But I will point out that you didn't really take into account the second part of the premise. Is it more 'paragon' to wipe out and entire sect (which, given that their number is in the millions, I still feel would qualify as genocide) given that you have another option. You can argue that the second option is more or less preferable than death, but the second option is also not final. You cannot second guess whether what you did was correct if you simply snuffed out their existence. This to me is what paragon is about. There's a lot of ambiguity about whether what's done is correct here, but there's absolutely no ambiguity about whether lives are preserved. -- Dammej (talk) 03:57, August 19, 2014 (UTC)